CYO Investigating Alleged Assault at Corpus Christi Youth Game

Catholic Youth Organization officials are investigating an alleged attempted assault during a sixth grade boys’ basketball game at  in Mineola on January 21.

According to Sea Cliff resident Tom Murphy, who was one of the officials during the game between Corpus Christi and St. Boniface, “a woman scorekeeper and mother of one of the Corpus Christi players, walked across the gym floor while the game was still in progress and attempted to assault one of the mothers of a St. Boniface player.”

In addition to being “so disturbed by the incident,” he added that the woman “had to be physically restrained and was ejected from the gym by the referee. Her tirade continued in the hallway at the conclusion of the game resulting in a melee and the arrival of four cars.”

St. Boniface narrowly won the game by a score of 37-34.

“I do know of a variety of situations where parents are given warnings (at games),” Steven Frierman of Associate professor of Physical Education and Sports Sciences at Hofstra University said. “They’ve gotten kicked out of the gym or out of the playground area because they opened their mouth, they yelled and screamed; sometime the upset of the parent is directed at the coach, sometimes it’s at the official and sometimes it’s at the other team and they open up a mouth that’s totally inappropriate and right away it causes anger and upset as opposed to saying ‘can I talk to you?’”

According to CYO Sports Coordinator Colleen Carbone, who confirmed that the incident took place, there was no assault, no injuries occurred and no police report was filed.

The organization is currently investigating the incident and conducting a disciplinary report procedure, which includes and official report made by the referee. CYO will also be contacting the parents of the members of the teams involved and are “waiting to have a written report from both coaches,” Carbone said, adding that she could not recall an incident like this taking place in CYO athletics.

Parents inserting themselves is nothing new, but it can often lead to conflict during events.

“You have parents who are very uneducated about the youth sport process,” Frierman said, advocating for a list of rules, regulations and a code of conduct for participating as well as consequences be given to parents and enforced in each league. “They’re totally unfamiliar with the goals and objectives of youth sports… the parents are looking at winning as a main factor.”

Corpus Christi coach Tara Graff declined to comment for this article.

Mineola Patch will update this story as more information becomes available.

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